Intersectionality as a lens for dialogue with urban and digital space

Readings on gender, race and class in the Brazilian South-Southeast axis

Abstract

The article addresses the notion of intersectionality, emphasising the intersection of three markers — gender, class, and race — in relation to urban and digital spaces. It begins by presenting the region selected for exploring the theme under study — the Brazilian South-Southeast axis — in order to explain the contemporary logics of oppression and privilege from a historical perspective and their relationship with the material world; and digital technologies as a means of mediating and reproducing these processes. The aim is to use this intersectional lens to understand urban practices relating to poor, racialised women, and to examine how this reality is reflected in their media representations. To this end, a theoretical-conceptual framework has been developed based on a critical review of the literature on the concept of intersectionality, and its relationship to discrimination and privilege; an empirical framework has been developed based on inequalities in digital access and their impact on technological benefits; a selection of digital platforms - specifically social networks that inform about identity performances -, were used to choose illustrative case studies; and case studies where used to learn, on the one hand, from paradigms of exclusion, oppression and invisibility and, on the other hand, from models of inspiring resistance leading to a digital feminism aimed at (social, spatial, and urban) inclusion, and social transformation.